The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term. The power of the President of the Republic is mostly limited, with the real power resting in the hands of the President of the Government of Macedonia. The last election was last held October 2004: Branko Crvenkovski was elected president in a two-round ballot with 60.6%, defeating Sasko Kedev with 39.4%.

The current government is a coalition of VMRO-DPMNE, the Democratic Party of Albanians, the Liberal Party of Macedonia, the New Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Party of Macedonia, and the Party for the Movement of Turks in Macedonia.

Macedonian Government

The Republic of Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy with an executive government composed of a coalition of parties from the unicameral legislature (Собрание, Sobranie) and an independent judicial branch with a constitutional court. The Assembly is made up of 120 seats and the members are elected every four years.

The role of the President of the Republic is mostly ceremonial, with the real power resting in the hands of the President of the Government. The President is the commander-in-chief of the state armed forces and a president of the state Security Council. The President of the Republic is elected every five years and he or she can be elected twice at most. The current President is Branko Crvenkovski.

With the passage of a new law and elections held in 2005, local government functions are divided between 78 municipalities (општини, opštini; singular: општина, opština). The capital, Skopje, is governed as a group of ten municipalities collectively referred to as the "City of Skopje". Municipalities in the Republic of Macedonia are units of local self-government. Neighbouring municipalities may establish cooperative arrangements.

Judiciary power is exercised by courts, with the court system being headed by the Judicial Supreme Court, Constitutional Court and the Republican Judicial Council. The assembly appoints the judges.

The country's main political divergence is between the largely ethnically-based political parties representing the country's ethnic Macedonian majority and Albanian minority. The issue of the power balance between the two communities led to a brief war in 2001, following which a power-sharing agreement was reached. In August 2004, the Republic's parliament passed legislation redrawing local boundaries and giving greater local autonomy to ethnic Albanians in areas where they predominate.

After a troublesome pre-election campaign, the country saw a relatively calm and democratic change of government in the elections held on 5 July 2006. The elections were marked by a decisive victory of the centre-right party VMRO-DPMNE led by Nikola Gruevski.

Gruevski's decision to include the Democratic Party of Albanians in the new government, instead of the Democratic Union for Integration - Party for Democratic Prosperity coalition which won the majority of the Albanian votes, triggered protests throughout the Albanian-dominated parts of the country.